Two Apps You Need To Get Before Ski Season

Here at Women’s Adventure, we love apps. And not just the crackers, cheese, and crudité kind that come around the holidays. (We love those, too.) But the apps you can download for your smartphone or tablet that give you some handy new tool.

Here are two new apps we’ve discovered just in time for the ski/snowboard season this winter:

Ski Nation app

This handy new mobile app features the updated snow conditions, trail maps, photos, and information for more than 950 ski and snowboard resorts across North America. All ski venues are pre-loaded, including downhill alpine areas, cross-country, and even ski jumps. The list includes major resorts, regional areas, local ski hills, and community facilities. And remember those pins you used to collect from every ski area you visited? This app has a digital version of the pins, so you can virtually collect and record your visits. And yes, there are social media sharing tools, so you can make your friends jealous about your latest trip to the mountains.

The idea behind Ski Nation’s app is to have an open-sourced, independent network for all riders, so that the information will be even more comprehensive as more people connect and use the app. The Apple iOS version is available now, and the Android version launches Friday 11/21/14.

Avenza PDF Maps app

It’s easy enough to get a map or directions to your favorite ski resort, but what about finding routes from there? What if you’d like to head out on a backcountry tour or a snowshoe excursion and you won’t have cell service? Avenza’s PDF Maps app has you covered. You can download topographical or street maps from anywhere in the U.S., and reference them for navigation even if you are not in range of service.

The app also lets you GPS track your location on the maps, drop pins, and navigate using the dropped pins or the coordinates of locations. And there are social media sharing tools, so you can show your Facebook and Twitter friends where you have been or where you’re headed.

Avenza PDF Maps is available for free on Apple iOS and Android systems, but beware: You have to purchase the maps when you download them, just as you’d have to do with a regular map. But you do have some great navigational/social tools you can use with your digital maps—and they won’t get ruined pulling them in and out of your backpack.